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ExceedingHegelandLacan:
DifferentFieldsof Pleasurewithin
FoucaultandIrigaray
SHANNON WINNUBST

Anglo-Americanembodimentsof poststructuralist and Frenchfeminismoften

alignthemselves with the textsof eitherMichel Foucault or LuceIrigaray.Interro-
this
gating alleged distance between Foucault and Irigaray,I showhowit reinscribes
thephallicfieldof conceptsand categorieswithinfeministdiscourses.Framingboth
FoucaultandIrigarayas exceedingJacques Lacan'smetamorphosis of G.W.F Hegel's
I
Concept, suggest thatengaging theirstylesmightyieldricher toolsfor articulating
thedifferenceswithinourdifferentlives.

If language is a caressing of the phallus, as Luce Irigaraysuggests in her

early essay "This Sex Which Is Not One" (1985c),1 if language is weaving
alwaysthrough the field of phallic pleasureand phallic desire-erecting new
concepts that are then enveloped by the Oedipal mother of discourse-what
could it possiblymean to speakthe feminine?Would it be to refuseto sheathe
the concept, the sword, the bloody dagger?And how to speak thus without
invoking that fearwhich SigmundFreudboth uncovered and embeddedin us
so well, the fearof castration?Is it possible?And who is castrated?The master
who feeds his yearningfor Absolute Ownershipwith the powerof languageto
name, the power to conceptualize (Irigaray1996, 44)? Who would mournthe
castrationof that needy, that need-basedpower?Who would mournthe death
of facile sovereignty?
The hybridof poststructuralistfeminismstrugglesto breakthroughthe con-
straintsof this phallic field of conceptual thinking. The chains of linear cau-
sality,teleology, univocity, individuality,rights,and contractedpowerseem to
be losing their grip.And yet it often seems that those chains may work in the
same way that a dog's choke collar works:the more we struggle,the tighter

Hypatia vol. 14, no. 1 (Winter 1999) ? by Shannon Winnubst

14 Hypatia

their grip. A "clean break"is neither desirablenor possible. Given this pre-
dicament, and given the kind of hypervigilance that it calls for-that is, a
hypervigilance about not reinscribing,and thus embedding yet further,the
very kinds of conceptual constraints that poststructuralistfeminists hope to
elude, to thwart, to disrupt-the ways in which categories and conceptual
distances are erected withinpoststructuralistfeminism continue to puzzleme.
An exemplarof such a conceptual distancing is found in the Anglo-Ameri-
can readingsof the work of Luce Irigarayand Michel Foucault. Determined,
and perhaps over-determinedas I will suggest, as operating out of mutually
exclusive discourses,these two thinkers and the styles of thinking that they
have spawned are rarelybrought together in any attempt to engage2their in-
tersections and divergences.3The discussions,brief and combative, are most
often constrained by the frame of the boxing ring, wherein the writer aligns
her/himself from the outset with the competitor who is clearly destined to
triumph,to trampleover the other-an odd metaphorics,to say the least, for
both feminist and poststructuralist attempts to move beyond the power
configurationsof strictly dyadic logics. I am wonderinghere whether this dis-
tance between Irigarayand Foucault,particularlyas a combative or dismissive
distance, might indicate something more worrisome,something more insidi-
ous. I am wondering whether it might indicate a reinscriptionof the phallic
field and its erection of concepts and categories withinthe fields of poststruc-
turalistfeminism.
And so let us returnfor a while to that field of phallic pleasureand desire.
How does it operate?A fair question, given its gridlikeperformanceof singu-
lar positions and demarcated-active and passive-roles.

FROMTHE HEGELIANCONCEPTTO THE LACANIANPHALLUS

To begin, I offerthe following topographicalgenealogyof the phallic field-

a field that might also go by the name of "traditionalwestern metaphysics."
When one framesa characterizationof the western traditionthroughthe lens
of the concept, one must inevitably return to G.W.F.Hegel. Many consider
him to be the conceptual thinker par excellence. And yet, by looking more
closely at both the Phenomenologyof Spirit(Hegel 1977) and the Scienceof
Logic (Hegel 1969), we see that this characterization,particularlyas often
grounded in an understandingof conceptual thinking as abstractor disem-
bodied, belongs moreproperlyto a kind of anti-Hegelian deploymentof Hegel
than it does to the texts that are gathered under his name.4However, I will
resist, at least explicitly, Hegel's drive to totalize this essay and offer only a
cartographer'ssnapshot of Hegel's reworking of the Concept-and thus of
conceptual thinking-as a way of locating, througha Lacanianinterpolation,
the stakes involved in exceeding the phallus.5
 Shannon Winnubst 15

At the beginning of volume 2 of the Scienceof Logic,Hegel locates the

Concept6 as a product of the faculty of understanding,not of the faculties of
judgmentor formalreason.The faculty of understanding,as can be seen most
emphaticallyin Hegel'sdiatribesagainstthe "Philosopherof the Understand-
ing" (who bearsa strikingresemblanceto ImmanuelKant), functions within
Hegel's system in both the Phenomenologyand the Logicas something of a
necessary evil. Through Kant, we can see how the understandinggenerates
antinomies necessary to the workings of the dialectic: contradictorydyads
are, after all, the origin of the dialectic.7However, the danger of the under-
standing is, in short, failing to move beyond Kant. The rigidifyingof antino-
mies into intractable figures frozen in opposition quickly spins into the
notorious "badinfinite,"wherein no dialectical mediation can renderthink-
ing fluid again and thinking cannot think itself as a temporalphenomenon. If
trapped in the understanding,the strict contradiction will not yield to any
mediation, and cognition is damned to a strict Either/Orlogic that is stripped
of any temporallocation.
In reworkingthe Concept, Hegel effectively mediates this bad infinity of
antinomies in which the Philosopher of the Understandingwould otherwise
mire cognition. Given that the Logicpresupposesthe Phenomenology, we can
read cognition in the as
Logic having undergone the radical historicizing of
Absolute Knowing that Hegel performsin the Phenomenology.8 Thus, we are
no longer fighting the dangersof becoming frozenin the atemporalformalism
of the Philosopher of the Understanding,wherein concepts quickly become
rigid, isolated forms with impenetrable boundaries.Consequently, this sec-
tion of the Logicgives us Hegel'sfullest articulationof the figure,place, force,
and meaning of the Concept. Performinga classic dialectical mediation of the
three figuresof the Concept (universality,particularity,and individuality),
Hegel delivers us to that which we should recognizeas the TrueConcept, the
determinateConcept. He describesthis figureas "the most concrete and rich-
est determination because it is the ground and the totalityof the preceding
determinations,of the categoriesof being and of the determinationsof reflec-
tion; these, therefore,are certainly also present in it" (1969, 617). This is the
figureof the Concept as self-determining,self-mediating,and ultimately,self-
creating: it totalizes the fields of both ontology and epistemology.It is both
the groundand telos of all philosophical thinking.
Given Hegel's continuous labor to historicize cognition, we cannot read
this figureof the Concept as a frozen, atemporaltarget at which all thinking
must aim; it is not a formalConcept or a transcendentalrepresentationof the
Truth.Nor is it a method or a tool.9 The Truthof Hegelian dialectics is not a
question of correspondence.However, in his move to avert formalism,Hegel
rendersthis kind of Concept and its concomitant conceptual thinking essen-
tial to the movement of trulyphilosophicalthinking;indeed,conceptualthink-
16 Hypatia

ing, in all its richnessof historicizingself-mediation,is the core of philosophi-

cal thinking and its move towardsself-consciousness.Thus, while Hegel dis-
armsany formalisturge to control (externally) the shape of "truethinking,"
he therebydrives the figureof the Concept into the core of cognition. It is no
longer a question of whether thinking adequatesa certain external standard
known as the Concept of Truth;it is a question of whether thinking is truly
thinking-truly conceptual-at all. It is a question of embodyingthe Concept.
The German verb at the core of Hegel's Begriffis begreifen-to grasp, to
touch, to feel, to handle; also to conceive, to understand,to comprehend,to
realize.The word performsthe embodiment of the mental act of conceptual-
izing. Indeed, through this bodily contact, we can see how Hegel's reworking
of the Concept frees philosophical thinking from an external formalismthat
remainsattendantto-but alwaysat a distancefrom-a transcendental,atem-
poral sense of Truth:Truth and its Concept are no longer abstract,no longer
disembodied.But the junction between Begriffand begreifenis not a simple or
neutral connection. The junction between Begriffand begreifenperformsa
particularkind of embodiment: it requiresa body capable of enclosure, of
wrappingitself aroundothers;a body attuned to the delineations among bod-
ies and thus capableof graspingand handling others;a body that can seize and
control and manage others, that can accommodate the demands of owner-
ship; a body that can totalize, that can masterbodies-bodies of knowledge,
bodies of texts, bodies of cultures,bodies. In embodyingphilosophical think-
ing, Hegel does not entertain the possibility of a variety of different bodies.
He demands that true philosophical thinking must embody one form-the
form of the Concept.10
What has all of this to do with the navigations of discourseand language
that we find in Foucaultand Irigaray?ThroughJacquesLacan'sinterpolation
of the Hegelian dialectic into Freudianpsychoanalysis,the figureof the Con-
cept metamorphoses.It changes into a form that has since been deployed
almost as an unspoken figure in poststructuralistdiscussions-the figure of
the phallus. Through Lacan, the Concept becomes embodied-and thereby
strangelydisembodiedyet one more time-as the phallus. Both Foucaultand
Irigarayrequirea more detailed map of this transformation.
Although the formal development of Saussurean linguistics postdates
Freud,' LacanreadsFreudas having conceived of the unconsciousin termsof
language. In fact, he claims it is Freud'sdevelopment that gives the signifier/
signifiedopposition "the full extent of its implications:namely,that the signi-
fierhas an active function in determiningcertain effects in which the signifi-
able appearsas submittingto its mark,by becoming through that passion the
signified"(1977, 284). Lacan demands that psychoanalysisboth reclaim its
Freudianheritage and recast its Freudianschemasonto the field of language.12
Echoing Ferdinandde Saussureand Martin Heidegger and voicing a virtual
 Shannon Winnubst 17

dictum of poststructuralistthinkers, Lacanproceedsto locate languageas the

field out of which the figureof "man"emerges:"This passion of the signifier
now becomes a new dimension of the human condition in that it is not only
man who speaks,but that in man and throughman it speaks(sa parle),that his
nature is woven by effects in which is to be found the structureof language,of
which he becomes the material"(1977, 284). The effects of languagebecome
the place out of which the subjectemerges.That is, the activities-both men-
tal and corporeal-of the subject are groundednot in the subjecther/himself
as an autonomousor self-directingbeing, but in the fieldof language(Saussure's
langue)that gives rise to that subjectivity.All ontologies and epistemologies
are thus the effect of language, the effect of signifiers.And what structures
that field of signifiers?What gives force and form and meaning to that field of
language?
Mergingthe Hegelian configurationof desirewith the Saussureanvaloriza-
tion of the signifieras the site of meaning, Lacan introducesthe figureof the
phallus:"The phallus is the privilegedsignifierof that markin which the role
of the logos is joined with the advent of desire"(1977, 287). It is throughthe
phallus that the infinite horizon of desire begins to structureitself within the
law of language.Emergingout of the complex effects of the mirrorstage, par-
ticularlyas followed by the Oedipal stage, Lacan'ssense of desire re-caststhe
Hegelian desire for recognition. This is no longer simply the desire to be rec-
ognizedby the other; it now becomes the desireto be the cause of desirein the
other. Desire thus performsitself in the symbolic register as the attempt to
seduce the other13-an attempt on which the subject is dependent, given its
groundingin the ontological lack that structuresboth the imaginary'sdemand
and the real'sneed.14But this is no simple seduction. This is not the seduction
of the other into recognizingone's self as an equal or as a unique or autono-
mous being-i.e., as a Master,per Hegel. Rather, this is the seduction of the
other to view one's self as the cause of desire in the other: this is the seduction
of the other to allow one's self to be the ground of her/his desire, to be the
structuringand controllingfigureof the her/his-the other's-desire. The other
is not recognized in such a play as an autonomous or equal other, but as an
other to be manipulatedby the ever greedydesire-demand-neednexus. Desire
ultimately speaksonly through the mouth of demand.As ElizabethGroszde-
scribes,"Desireis concerned only with its own processes,pleasures,and inter-
nal logic, a logic of the signifier"(1990, 65).
Having seduced the other onto the dangerousand insatiable field of the
infinite play of signifiers,desire still strugglesto find its own impossiblesatia-
tion.15It strugglesto dominate, in a classic dialectic of masterand slave, the
field of signifiers:it struggles,depending on its placement in the strict binary
of sexual difference that is itself alreadystructuredby the phallus, either to
haveor to be the phallus.16Lacan explains this privilege that the phallus exer-
18 Hypatia

cises through the registersof both the real and the symbolic:"It can be said
that this signifieris chosen because it is the most tangible element17in the real
of sexual copulation, and also the most symbolic in the literal (typographical)
sense of the term, since it is equivalent there to the (logical) copula. It might
also be said that, by virtue of its turgidity,it is the image of the vital flow as it
is transmittedin generation"(1977, 287). While Lacanproceedsto insist that
the phallus is not reducible to the penis18(a crucial point to which I shall
return later), Lacan nevertheless allows for a metaphoricalrelation between
the sexual and logical acts of copulation. Given that both physical and men-
tal acts are effects of language-i.e., effects of the play of signifiers-the privi-
leged signifierof one field should resembleor mirrorthe privilegedsignifierof
the other field. Furthermore,as Heidegger tells us, the privilege that Lacan
thereby grantsyet again to the role of the copula ensuresthe continuous re-
inscription of western metaphysics in that field of signifiers.In reading the
phallus as possessingthe power of the copula, Lacan easily elevates it to the
signifierof signifiersin the field of traditionalwestern metaphysics.
Lacan'smetamorphosisof the Hegelian Concept thus begins to emerge, as
the phallus assumesa foundationalrole that mirrorsthe one Hegel ascribesto
the Concept. This mirroringbetween the symbolic and the real, however, is
more than a mere structuralsimilarity.In readingthe symbolic act of the logi-
cal copula through the real act of sexual copulation, a particularcriterion
emergesas the indication of the power of the phallus:visibility. The phallus,
particularlyas read through the embodiment of the penis, can be seen. It is
because it is "the imageof the vital flow"and "byvirtue of its turgidity" (Lacan
1977, 287; emphasisadded)that the phallusmeritsbeing chosen as the signifier
of signifiers.19Thus, two crucial, mutuallyconstituting shifts occur.
First,it by virtue of its visibility that the penis, the phallic organ, is priv-
is
ileged in the act of sexual copulation. Simultaneously,however, this act of
sexual copulation representsthe metaphysical-logicalact of copulation. The
privilegingof visibility,which both groundsand is groundedby the epistemol-
ogy of representation,must then operate acrossboth registersof the real and
the symbolic. That is, insofaras the possibility of staging the Truthrelies on
and simultaneously re-enforces the privileged status of sight, of seeing the
Truth,Lacan inscribesthe full apparatusof the metaphysicsof representation
in his readingsof both the real and the symbolic. Lacan'sdeployment of the
Hegelian Concept in the figureof the phallus thus inscribesthe crucial crite-
rion of visibility as a necessary demarcation of privileged-i.e., phallic per
Lacan and philosophical per Hegel-ontologies and epistemologies. Conse-
quently,despite all of Hegel'sdiatribesagainst"picture-thinking,"conceptual
thinking blursonce again into the metaphysicsof representation:the phallus
may not be reducible to the penis, but the penis does representthe phallus.20
Thus, the classic privileging of sight and the dominant ontology and episte-
 Shannon Winnubst 19

mology of representationis restoredin-and deployed furtherby-the meta-

psychology of Lacanianpsychoanalysis.
Lacan'sinterpolation of the Hegelian Concept thus mirrorsHegel's sys-
tem. Just as I have suggestedthat Hegel, in his move to historicize the Con-
cept, effectivelyinscribesit at the core of thinking, so too does Lacanreinscribe
the centrality of the phallus, despite his having historicized its privilege.21
Trueto his Freudianroots, Lacanplaces the phallusin the central and defining
position as the copula, that which both distinguishesthe two sexes and brings
them together: sexual difference, as already indicated above, is determined
solely through the location to and relation with the phallus.22Moreover, in
his reinscriptionof the metaphysicsof representation,Lacaneffectively raises
the phallus to a transcendentalposition-a strangelydisembodied,abstract,
and atemporalsignifierof signifiers.Through a representationof the embodi-
ment of Hegel'sConcept, Lacan'sphallusrendersconceptual thinking as both
the impossibledesireand the ultimate power.This phallic powerconsequently
becomes the power to distinguish, to delineate, to demarcate,to centralize,
and to control the "proper"names of objects and values in the world. These
arethe characteristicsof phallogocentrism,groundedin this genealogicalmap
through Hegel and Lacan, that guide the following readingsof Foucaultand
Irigaray.

DISCURSIVEORIGINS,PERFORMATIVE
TRUTHS:FOUCAULT'SEXCESSES

In Foucault'stexts, this phallogocentric field is almost everywhere.Con-

ceptual thinking, which I am now framing as the hallmark of this phallic
desire and pleasurethat dominates western language,haunts Foucault'stexts.
Conceptual thinking is both that which he strugglesto elude, to evade and
thus, to disrupt,and that which animateshis texts with fear-the fearof hav-
ing alreadyfallen back into it, of having never emergedout of it; the fear of
purebeginnings;the fearof Hegel, standingat the end of every text, "motion-
less, waiting for us" (Foucault 1972, 235).
To locate it specifically,I turn to one of Foucault'saccounts of the histori-
cal emergence of this conceptual thinking: the break between Hesiod and
Plato. Echoing FriedrichNietzsche, Foucaultasksabout "whathas been, what
still is, throughoutourdiscourse,this will to truthwhich has survivedthrough-
out so many centuries of our history"(1972, 218). He then portraysthe his-
torical power struggleand division that producedour unquestionablewill to
knowledge and its investment in the apparatusesof concepts and categories.
"Withthe sixth centuryGreekpoets, truediscourse-in the meaningfulsense-
inspiring respect and terror,to which all were obliged to submit, because it
held sway over all and was pronouncedby men who spoke as of right, accord-
ing to ritual, meted out justice and attributed to each his rightful share; it
20 Hypatia

prophesied the future, not merely announcing what was going to occur, but
contributing to its actualevent, carryingmenalongwithit and thus weaving itself
into the fabric of fate" (1972, 218; emphasis added). In Hesiod's time, the
truthresidedin what discoursedid, in what and how it performedits meaning.
Only a centurylater,however, as Foucaultwrites,"thehighest truthno longer
residedin what discoursewas, nor in what it did:it lay in what wassaid"(1972,
218). The criterionof a "true"discourseshifted from its performativepoweras
a ritualizedact that affectedboth participantsand onlookers to its referential
form as an exacting mirror-i.e., a concept or a conceptual representation-
of the object of its enunciation. The referential character of language, pre-
cisely through its denunciation of power as a constitutive site of meaning,
triumphsover the performativepower of discourse, and discourse itself be-
comes unhinged-rather permanently in the wester history of thinking-
fromthe exercise of power.Or so the historyof westernphilosophersand their
hiding of this phallic desire and pleasurewould have us believe.
Where does Foucault go from here? How does he attempt to expose and
simultaneouslyto avoid this "repression"of the phallic? How does he exceed
this phallic field of desire and pleasure,of truth and its disavowalof power?
This placement of discourse,as an event intrinsicallytied to power,prior
to the emergence of the Platonic tradition,gives Foucaultthe tools to display
how discourse(langage)precedes-not only historicallybut also ontologically-
language (langue). If discoursesare rendered meaningful through their per-
formativepower (which Foucaultshows throughouthis work), then concepts,
which in turn give representationsof the true, metaphysical nature of "re-
ality,"no longer hold the primaryontological status that the dominant tra-
dition of western philosophy proclaims-or, as we see now, decrees. To the
contrary,this "discourseof metaphysics"is one discourse,one articulationof a
singularnetwork of power constellations that proclaimsitself as "the true":it
is the exclusive discourse erected by the singularpower of the phallus. The
Platonic23disposition towardslanguage as a medium to be willfully manipu-
lated to give the truestpossible approximationof the transcendentalnatureof
things-i.e., to imitate, to mime, or to representthe Forms-is no longer the
immutable"truth"of language.It is one historical emergenceof a discourse,24
of a network of strugglingpracticesand conflicting power constellations, that
hides its intrinsic connection to (phallic) power and thereby proclaims it-
self-through a quintessentiallypowerfulperformance-not the truediscourse,
but simply, "the Truth."Phallic desire thereby defines the field of language
and scripts the roles of pleasure within it: the singular form of conceptual
knowledge becomes the consummatingact.
Again following in the Nietzschean heritage, Foucault attempts to turn
this discourseof the truth upon itself and to examine this desire that resides
silently within it. Of course, this is no easy task:the continual maskingof this
 Shannon Winnubst 21

will, this desire, is the very condition of possibilityof the truth as proclaimed
(e.g., as objective, as universal,as transcendental,as neutral-both political-
ly and sexually-as conceptual). This is the breakfrom Hesiod. As Foucault
writes, "truediscourseno longer respondsto desire or to that which exercises
power in the will to truth" (Foucault 1972, 219). To seek and to speak the
truth is now simply our nature-and the nature of our language (langue).As
Nietzsche alreadyrealized, the questions, "Why truth?Why not rather un-
truth?"(Nietzsche 1972, 15) are merely the meaninglessbabble of the soph-
ists.And the sophistshave been routed:"Truediscourse,liberatedby the nature
of its formfrom desire and power,is incapableof recognisingthe will to truth
which pervadesit; and the will to truth, having imposed itself upon us for so
long, is such that the truth it seeks to reveal cannot fail to mask it" (Foucault
1972, 219). Foucault'slater spin on the logic of repressionoperates in this
same relation:true discourserepressesits will and desirefor truth only to have
that will and desireproliferate,endlessly,within the discourseof the true.The
power of the discourseof the true, significantlynot unlike the power of the
logic of repressionand perhapseven the logic of Freudianpsychoanalysis,per-
petuates itself through its own denial of its will, through its own denial of its
desire-its phallic, infinite, and impossibledesire.
This then becomes one of the primarythemes of Foucault'sHistoryof Sexu-
ality, Volume1 (1978), where he shows how the logic of "the RepressiveHy-
pothesis" operates through a denial of its actual, material effects. In these
termsof language(langue)and discourse(langage),the RepressiveHypothesis
worksthrougha claim to language,to an ontological state of being that defines
absolutely and transcendentallythe normal state of a human's(interestingly
neutered) sexuality. It gains its power through its silent and hidden inscrip-
tion of the heterosexual, conjugal, procreativecouple as the naturalnorm of
human sexuality-an inscription that it must not make explicit and cannot
riskexposing if it is to representit as, simply,the Truth.Mirroringthe mecha-
nisms of the discourseof the True,the RepressiveHypothesiscan only gain its
power through its consistent denial and disavowalof any such power:it is not
a historicalor political discourse,it is speakingthe truenatureof human sexu-
ality; it is not a powerfuldiscourse,it is language;the desire that drives it is
not specificallyand exclusively phallic desire, it is human desire. Most of all,
it is not a performativediscoursethat producessexual subjects,it is a transpar-
ent representationof the Truthof human sexuality.
The dispersedand multiple effects of Foucault'swork in all three volumes
of TheHistoryof Sexuality(1978) thus performthe discursivity-e.g., the pow-
ers, struggles,incoherencies, multiplicities of meanings-that both surrounds
and groundsthis alleged univocity. That is, the effects of Foucault'stexts ren-
derthis self-proclaimedabsolutelogic-this langue-one discourse,one langage,
among the complex matrix of multiple discourseson sexuality proliferating
22 Hypatia

throughout the last two centuries. Placing the RepressiveHypothesis "back

within a general economy of discourseson sex in modem societies since the
seventeenth century"(1978, 11), Foucault shows how these discourses,par-
ticularlyas multiple and fragmentedpractices,exceed the restrictedexplana-
torylens of repression/liberation:they exceed the phallicdemarcationsof desire
and pleasure. For example, in The Historyof Sexuality,Volume1, the medi-
calizationof the body enacted "circularincitements ... [and]perpetualspirals
of power and pleasure"(1978, 45) that both thwart and outstrip the strict
logic of repression.Or, another example from the same volume, the incite-
ment of young boys to speak of sex scientifically invokes an erotics of episte-
mology that, again, exceeds the binary logic of repression. Reading the
RepressiveHypothesis as the representationof true sexuality,and thus as the
figureof the Concept here, we can see that Foucaultis not giving us a concep-
tual analysis.
To the contrary,Foucaultperformshis genealogical style in these texts. He
circulatesthrough the discursivefields that structuredthe attitudes, expecta-
tions, styles, and concerns of a limited epoch. He enters into the practices
that both constitute and are constituted by those discursivefields, exploring
the styles of problematizationenacted arounda specific area of experience-
e.g., around aphrodisiafor the ancient Greeks or around sexuality for the
modems. He then localizeshis focus yet furtherby locating the kind of subject
that is both submitted to and producedby these specific practices, attitudes,
and discourses-e.g., in The Use of Pleasure(1990), the subjectposition of the
Greekhusbandenacts a discursiveconstellationquite differentfromthat which
the Greekboy or Greekwife inhabit.Havingexcavatedthese complex layerings
of discursiveconstellations (and all of the strugglesand powers that consti-
tute these), Foucaultdoes not then analyzethese differencesthrough a con-
ceptual lens. That is, he does not place some univocal concept of desireupon
all of these practices,attitudes,discourses,and subjectsso that he can explain
or representthem as they truly are. For example, in volumes 2 (1990) and 3
(1988), Foucaultsuspendsboth the concept of the desiringsubjectthat domi-
nates our contemporary discourses on sexuality and the meta-concept of
continuity that would allow a Hegelian reinscription of this contemporary
concept of the desiring subject in the language (langue) of ancient Greeks.
Rather, having performeda genealogical excavation and thereby immersing
his readersinside those powers,struggles,incoherencies, and multiplicities of
meanings, Foucaultoften, although far from simply,concludes his texts.25
Thus, Foucault'stexts do not play on a conceptual field. Rather,they frame
the move to conceptualize as an exemplary indicator of the struggleswith-
in and among discourses.Particularlyfollowing upon the victory of the So-
cratic-Platonicdiscourse(per my earlierreadingof Hesiod and Plato and per
The Use of Pleasure[Foucault 1990]) and the emergence of representationin
 Shannon Winnubst 23

the Classicalepisteme(per The Orderof Things[1970] and The Historyof Sexu-

ality,Volume1 [1978]), concepts become the quintessentialmarkerof a victo-
rious discourse. Foucault thus shows-through an enactment of the power
that suppressesthese forgottendiscursivestruggles-how these victoriousdis-
courses produce the concepts through which we then read these various ep-
ochs-e.g., we read the modem subject through the concept of sexuality,the
very concept that the RepressiveHypothesisproduces.Justas Foucaultshows
us in his early reading of Mendel in "Discourseon Language,"(1972) the
emergence of a new concept marksthe site of strugglebetween competing
discourses.26Thus, Foucault'stexts move concepts back into the discursive
strugglesout of which they emerged,re-readingthem as the effects of victori-
ous-phallic--desires and powers,not as priorto or outside of such tumult.
The erection of concepts as the consummatingact of philosophymarksthe
victory of the phallic conquest. Over and over in Foucault'stexts, however,
the languageof concepts is exposed as a particulartype of performativedis-
course that is distinguishedby its claim to precede all other discourses-both
historically and ontologically-as their condition of possibility.The concept
performsthe quintessentiallyphallic claim to the pure origin. Yet, while the
phallus silences all other desiresand pleasures,conceptualizingthem as "non-
phallic" and thus meaningless (both epistemologically and culturally), Fou-
cault'stexts disruptand exceed this phallogocentricstyle of conceptualreading
-casting us onto the infinitelycomplex and open-endedhorizonsof discourses,
and pleasures,that exceed the dominance of the phallus.

FLUIDSTYLES,MESSYBODIES:IRIGARAY'S
EXCESSES

Irigarayalso strugglesto play differentlyon this field of phallic pleasureand

desire.Displacingthe stakesof winning or losing, she most often disruptssuch
judgmentsin the excess of her pleasure.But what of the phallic power struc-
ture?Does it move or shake or tremblewith the crossingsof her plays?Is there
any tremor,any quaking,any awakeningof a yearningto play otherwise,else-
where?It seems as though to analyze,or to conceptualize, the movements of
Irigaray'stexts would be to reinscribethe phallic field, to fall back onto the
mappinggridof singularpositionsanddemarcatedroles.She disruptsand eludes
this kind of reading, implicitly and explicitly, acrossher texts.
In "The Three Genres,"Irigarayexplicitly states that the style she is creat-
ing and calling for "cannot be reduced to a grid that can be transposedor
imposed elsewhere. A style resists coding, summarizing,encrypting, pigeon-
holing in differentlyprogrammedmachines. It cannot be reduced to opposi-
tions sensible/intelligible, poetic/conceptual ... or the masculine/feminine,
as presentedto us by all these dichotomies.... It may permit them,... but it
escapesthem" (Irigaray1991, 148). Thus, the question of Irigaray'srelation to
24 Hypatia

this phallic field of pleasureand desire cannot be mappedsimply through di-

chotomousoptions:complicitous/resistant,inside/outside,reinscribing/destroy-
ing, and caressing/castrating.Such concepts beg her questions, reducingher
irreduciblestyle to components it never owned. In reading Irigaray,we must
become attuned to the performances-and they are always multiple perfor-
mances of multiple voices within multiple layers-of her texts. As she tells us
in variousvoices, "weneed to proceed in such a way that linear readingis no
longer possible"(1985c, 80), to "overthrowsyntax by suspendingits eternally
teleological order"(1985b, 142), to performour own retraversalsof her retra-
versals of the western tradition. We need to proceed in a way that does not
assume conceptual knowledge as the foregone consummatingact of our de-
sire, even if eternally deferred.
Given these precautions, we can still follow Irigaray'sdescription of her
workas falling generallyinto two types of texts (1991, 142). On the one hand,
she gives us many accounts of her field work in linguistics, wherein she maps
the differencesbetween women's and men's discoursesalong such registersas
subjectpositions, passive/activevoices, and concrete/abstractframingsof the
world; this is what she refers to as the necessity of a formal analysis of the
structureof discourse(1991, 142). On the other hand, she immersesherself in
variousdialogueswith the western philosophical-and psychoanalytic-tra-
dition in her attemptsto deconstruct,to undermine,and, ultimately,to mimic
the foundational discourse of metaphysics;here she begins to articulate the
sexuate style of discourse that resists formalization-the style that has gone
conspicuously unnoticed in the history of the western tradition. We could
read this division as indicating a split between Irigaray'swork aboutlanguage
and her workin language.Keeping these at a distance fromone another might
then allow the former work, her work in linguistics as the work about lan-
guage, to be read as sliding back into a traditionalconceptual analysisof the
workingsof grammarand syntax that relies on a kind of transcendentaldis-
course ("philosophy")fromwhich to objectify and categorizethese structures.
The split between her work aboutlanguage and her work in language would
then fall into the dualistic frame of conceptualwork and performativework.
Such a framemight subsequentlybe readas betrayinga persistentreliance on
conceptual thinking, despite her deconstructive mimicries of the tradition.
To resist this reading, therefore, we must work to show how each of these
styles are, as Carolyn Burkesuggests,"partof her overall program... to undo
'the cultural injustices perpetratedby language'[and bring about] sexual lib-
eration ... throughradicalshifts and changes in language"(Burke,Schor, and
Whitford 1994, 257).
Irigarayexplicitly deflects the possibility that she is proposing new con-
cepts about woman or about woman's language. In the interviews collected
under the name "Questions"in ThisSex WhichIs Not One, she says,"Toclaim
 Shannon Winnubst 25

that the feminine can be expressedin the formof a concept is to allow oneself
to be caught up again in a system of 'masculine' representations,in which
women are trappedin a systemof meaning which serves the auto-affectionof
the masculinesubject"(1985c, 122-23). The concept, as we have seen, is one
of the strongholds of phallogocentric thinking. It is that exemplaryphallic
structurethat allows strict definition, clear demarcation,and precise territo-
rial markers.In Irigaray'sre-signifyingof the tradition'sconcepts, therefore,
she is working not to construct new concepts but to dismantle this strong-
hold, this fortress,internally.As MargaretWhitford explains, "[s]heis point-
ing to the way in which concepts can themselves be used as part of a defence
system, in which case countering them with other concepts merely colludes,
it does not dismantle the defence"(Whitford 1991, 37). In analyzingthe for-
mal structuresof men'sand women'sdiscourses,therefore,Irigarayis not claim-
ing a conceptual-or universal27-account of the linguistic structuresof male
and female language (langue);rather,she is performingyet another exposure
of the sexual difference that is otherwise ignored, silenced, avoided in the
phallic resistance to the sexualizedcharacterof discourse(langage).
For example, Irigarayfocuses on the function of the neuter in French and
the waysthat it signifiesan inert, transcendentalnature(see "TheThree Gen-
res"[1991] and "Women'sDiscourseand Men'sDiscourse"[1993b]). Through
Irigaray'sreadingof the everydayphrasessuch as il pleut, il neige,il vent, and il
tonne,we become sensitized to the animate and forceful characterof such a
nature. It is not an abstraction:it is a physicalforce that moves and blows and
makes loud noises. This force touches us. Nature is not a neutral being tran-
scendent to us: it is not a concept. Nature engages us bodily. Why then not
articulateour engagements in a languagethat speaksour bodily,subjective-
sexual-markings? What bodily markis this neutralityhiding?Who produced
it? Again, the phallus veils its markingsin the effort to perpetuateits power:
"Thisorderof laws claims to be neutral, but it bearsthe marksof he who pro-
duces them" (1991, 14).
Irigaray'sworkon the linguisticstructuresof contemporaryspokendiscourses
thus uncovers the subtle workingsof the phallus in and on language.Particu-
larly in her numerousanalysesof the sexed valuations of nouns (e.g., le soleil
and la lune;un chateauand unemaison;and the morecomplicatedle moissonneur
and the impossibilityof la moissonneuseas anything other than the harvesting
machine28),she showshow such gendereddifferenceseffect a speakingsubject's
locating of her/himself in relation to objects, to verbs, to others, and to the
world. These are but surfaceindicatorsof the ways in which the syntactical
laws of our discourses,while perhaps appearinginnocuous in their alleged
neutrality,effectively foreclose the possibility of a sexed language,the possi-
bility of a feminine or trulymasculinevoice.29Without such workat the level
of utterances (enonciation)and statements (enonces), Irigarayinsists that the
26 Hypatia

cultural order of discoursewill go unchanged. Without her work about lan-

guage,her workin languageand the styles that she develops there cannot gain
a solid foothold in the culturalorder.
Turningthen to her style of deconstructivemimicry,we can begin to sense
her struggleto play differentlyon the dominating field of phallic desire and
pleasure. In this strategy,Irigarayoften locates the voice/place of the femi-
nine as an "elsewhere"to the phallogocentric structure.She articulatesthis
"elsewhere"throughthe eroticsof the feminine morphology,as we see in "This
Sex Which Is Not One" (1985c), where woman'spleasureoutstripsthe clas-
sic phallocentric representationof sexuality:her pleasureis "everywhere."In
being "everywhere,"as Irigaraydevelops furtherin An Ethicsof SexualDiffer-
ence (1993a), it is nowhere: it cannot be located; it has no place. Irigarayre-
signifiesthe feminine from the classic representationas a negative space that
is lacking (the phallus) into that which exceeds the graspof the phallus and
resiststhe epistemologiesof representation.However,this re-significationdoes
not occur in a vacuum. Irigaray'sre-signifyingof the feminine is groundedin
the original phallic demarcation of the feminine as the condition of possi-
bility of its own foundational, metaphysical discourse-of phallic language
(langue).She locates this space in Speculum(1985b), referringto the account-
ability that Freudevades, as the unpaid loan-or theft-of the feminine that
grounds the phallic economy of metaphysics. Merging these two positions,
Irigarayarticulatesthe feminine as "elsewhere"to the phallic field, while si-
multaneouslyreinscribingthe feminine within the phallogocentric economy
as the suppressedfigurethat groundsthe repressivestructureof the phallus-
i.e., that grounds the possibility of metaphysical language. The feminine is
both the necessary foundation and an elusive elsewhere. How can Irigaray,
how can we, navigate this double bind?
In the note that Irigarayappendsto Speculum(1985b) regardingher omis-
sion of formalnotes and quotation marks,Irigaraywrites, "[I]nrelation to the
workingof theory, the/a woman fulfillsa twofold function-as the mute out-
side that sustains all systematicity;as a maternal and still silent ground that
nourishes all foundations"(1985b, 365). In her deconstructive mimicryand
subsequentre-signifyingof these figures,the "muteoutside"metamorphoses
into the erotics of the feminine morphologythat areeverywhereand nowhere,
exceeding the graspof the phallus and troublingall systematicityas it begins
to speak;the "maternaland still silent ground,"however, persistsin Irigaray's
strong sense that she-woman-cannot simply fly off into these utopias of
endless pleasuresand escape the phallic field. If, as Irigarayexposes, the femi-
nine functions as the necessarycondition of possibilityfor the phallic field of
pleasureand desire, and if this field has reducedand continues to reduce her
to silence, to the flattened mirror,to "the horrorof having nothing to see"
(1985c, 26), then the feminine must work back through the machinations of
these reductions if she is to recuperateher feminine voice; she must "cross
 Shannon Winnubst 27

back throughthe mirrorthat subtendsall speculation"(1985c, 77). The femi-

nine is both this suppressed,silenced foundation and an elusive elsewhere
that exceeds all grasp,all begreifen,all concepts. If she is to speak,if she is even
to feel her own excessivepleasure,the feminine mustelude this phallogocentric
field that she simultaneouslygrounds. But how? Grounding that which si-
lences her, how can she speak the feminine through a place or voice that is
not alwaysalreadya derivative of the phallogocentricstructure,of the phallic
language (langue)?How can she speak the feminine that no longer caresses
the phallus without performingsome kind of castration?

Let us engage Irigaray'sstyle further:who is it that fearscastration?

In the closed, speculareconomy of the Same that Irigarayexposes as oper-

ating throughoutphilosophical and psychoanalyticdiscoursein the western
tradition, there is only one kind of desiringsubject-the phallic. The power
to constitute meaning resides, accordingly,in this phallic subject, and the
form of that meaning reflects the phallic emphasis on both singularityand
visibility. As we have alreadydeveloped throughHegel and Lacan, this phal-
lic power is the power to distinguish,to delineate, to demarcate,to centralize,
and to control the "proper"names of objects and values in the world;it is the
power to reduce all non-phallic structuresto controlled negations that con-
tinually support-i.e., mirror-the dominance of the phallic economy; it is
the power to conceptualize. This singularpower resides in the phallic struc-
ture of pleasureand its naturalizingforce as the primary-i.e., as the singu-
larlylegitimate and legitimizing-form of desire.No other desireshave found
their voice: the closed, spectral economy relegates them to the space of the
mirror.Denying its dependence upon such a mirror,phallic desire narcissisti-
cally reflectsonly itself.
Within Irigaray'sarticulatingof the feminine morphology,which "hasyet
to be deployed"(1991, 151), desireand pleasureplay differently-but not op-
positionally.Again, as CarolynBurkedescribesIrigaray'swritings,"it [is]clear
that Irigaray'slinguistic interventions seek to unsettle the conceptual modes
in which languageimaginesthe shapeof actions"(Burke,Schor, and Whitford
1994, 253, emphasisadded). Fromthe performancesof female auto-eroticism
in the early"ThisSex Which IsNot One" (Irigaray1985c) to the reconfiguring
of space through the fluids and mucous of the interval that is not crossed in
An Ethicsof SexualDifference(1993a), feminine morphologyblursany bound-
ariesof strict insides and outsides.It folds back onto itself, touches itself, spills
both out of and into itself; there is nothing to see, but everything to feel, to
touch. It is from this non-place that is everywherethat Irigaraymimics the
field of phallic pleasure and desire, the field of metaphysicsthat she is sup-
posed to reflect silently.
In her workin language,Irigarayrecuperatesthe body,the materialitythat
28 Hypatia

sustains metaphysicallanguageonly to be erasedby it, and thereby re-aligns

the phallic field of perception to heed that which it cannot contain, that
which it cannot see, that which it cannot represent.She mimics the hysteri-
cal body of the phallically-markedfeminine. In "The 'Mechanics'of Fluids,"
she writes, "it is alreadygetting around . . . that women diffuse themselves
accordingto modulationsscarcelycompatible with the frameworkof the rul-
ing symbolics"(1985c, 106) (wherein "ateleology of reabsorptionof fluid in a
solidifiedform"[1985c, 110] rules). Irigarayevokes, provokes,and wallows in
those excessive pleasuresand longings that Freudlabeledhysterical.Her texts
laugh,hysterically,with these pleasures.They are diffuse,without form,with-
out place, exceeding all boundariesof morphologyand epistemology.We can-
not demarcatethem. Nor can we insist that these fluidexcesses are contained
exclusively in the feminine morphology.As Groszhas developed, non-phal-
locentric male morphologywould be attuned not to the consummationof its
solid, penile erection, but to the intensities and flows of its unbounded de-
sires.30Irigaraythus does not recuperateexclusively the feminine body, in a
move that would mirrorthe phallic claims to singularity,and thereby pose
a threat to the singularpower of the phallus:she does not castrate the phal-
lus. Rather,she recuperatesthe body-both the unmarkedmale body and the
markedfemale body-as it exceeds the strict demarcationsof phallocentric
concepts.31
Thus, it is not through castration that Irigarayspeaks the feminine, but
throughthe excess and sheer messinessof feminine morphologyand its open-
ing onto pleasuresthat cannot be reducedto the singularityof phallic desire.
De-centering the phallic desire for an erect concept and a singular,dominat-
ing form of meaning, she speaks from elsewhere-her language neither ca-
ressesnor castratesthe phallus.Her languageweavesin and throughand around
the phallus in a dance that may dazzle,but can never be captured,can never
be staged:it disregards-literallydisobeysthe command,"Regarde!"-thephal-
lus. Much to both Freud'sand Lacan'schagrin, Irigarayis not performingthe
struggleeither to be or to havethe phallus:she is speakingbeyondthe phallus.

DISCOURSESOF PLEASURE
EXPOSINGTHE PHALLUS:DIFFERENT

We have two readingsof the origin of philosophy-of conceptual think-

ing-as the foundational language of western thinking. In Foucault'stexts,
this discourse of the True par excellence is based upon certain historical
and political constellations of power.32Echoing themes central to Irigaray's
work, Foucaultmuses, "I wonder whether a certain number of philosophical
themes have not come to conform to this activity of limitation and exclusion
and perhapseven to reinforce it" (1972, 227). For Foucault, the discourseof
the Truemasksthe will to truth that pervadesit in ways not unlike the ways
 Shannon Winnubst 29

in which, for Irigaray,the possibility of metaphysical language relies on a

fundamentalsuppressionof the feminine. In both thinkers, we find a style of
reading that exposes an unspoken erasureas the condition of possibility of
this phallic field of discourse,desire, and pleasure.Each has left the phallus
exposed, naked, unsheathed, shorn of its omnipotence without its necessary
veiling.
Thus, both exceed the phallus-differently, but not oppositionally.In ex-
ceeding the phallus, they no longer fit the gridof oppositionaldifferenceor its
concepts of strict exclusion and contradiction.We can now see the overdeter-
mination of the alleged conceptual distance between them: it is the attempt
of the phallus to re-insertits dominance, to mire us yet again in the essential-
ist/constructionistdichotomies that these two thinkersoften represent.33 From
this place beyond the phallus, a place that is both nowhere and everywhere,
both sharedand unshareable,both Foucaultand Irigarayplay in fieldsof plea-
sure that are not reducible to the economy of lack that structuresthe phallic
field of desire. Both play in fields of discursivelyperformativepleasures,plea-
sures that are not structuredby language'sneed to possess the phallus, plea-
suresthat are not threatened by the fear of castration.
If we approachthe texts of Foucaultand Irigarayas inhabiting similardis-
cursive fields, we can then begin to put their differenceswithin those fields
into constructive-rather than destructive-play with one another.Entering
these different discursivefields, we can begin to explore the voices that we
might find in engagingthe texts of Irigarayand Foucault.How might we radi-
cally reconfigurethe processesthat we label thinking?Or desiring?Or writing
or readingor teaching?
The possible avenues, unsurprisingly,exceed the parametersof this paper.I
thus offeronly a brieffocus on questions of embodiment to indicate the kinds
of transformationsthat such an engaging might effect.34
While Irigarayrecuperatesa sexuatemorphologythroughexposingthe ways
that phallic power structuresour primarysyntax, Foucault never labels the
central mechanismsof power throughthe lens of sexual difference.If we were
to put sexual difference-not gender35-into play within the Foucauldianap-
proach to experience, we might begin to articulate materiality beyond the
problematicpassivity that circulates through many of Foucault'stexts. That
is, if we engagedFoucault'stexts with an Irigarayansense of sexual difference,
the play of a sexed body would bringa strongersense of the role of materiality
into Foucault'svariousaccounts of discursiveinscriptionson the-seemingly
neutral and passive-body.36
Simultaneously,bringing Foucault'srich sense of historical discourse,ge-
nealogical change, and discursivepower into contact with Irigaray'sanalysis
of the phallogocentriceconomy of the Same might furtherhistoricizeIrigaray's
sense of sexualdifference.That is, it might bringIrigaray'sinsistence on sexual
30 Hypatia

differenceas the primaryaxis of subjectivityinto a historicalfield where other

differencesaffecthow sexual differencegets articulated.Forexample, the roles
of racism,of economics, of nationality, of ethnicity, of varioushistorical dis-
coursesmight begin, througha Foucauldianinterpolation,to articulatesexual
differenceas it changes acrossdifferentsymbolicregisters.In so doing, it might
furtherdispel the insidious possibility of Irigaray'sreinscribingthe economy
of the Same in her articulationsof sexual difference.
Castingthis in termsof contemporarydebateswithin poststructuralistfemi-
nism, bringing Foucault and Irigaraytogether dismantles, yet again, the es-
sentialist/constructionistframe.37Subsequently,this hybrid of Foucault and
Irigaraymight begin to unleash some styles of thinking that are not bound to
either essentialistor social constructionistmodelsof subjectivity.Forexample,
in mergingIrigaray'srecuperationof the sexuate body, of materialityas sexed
morphology,with Foucault'sdiagnoses of the dynamics of power, we might
begin to articulatebodies that are simultaneouslymateriallyand socially con-
structedwithout placing those vectors into a suspiciouslycompetitive onto-
logical hierarchy.That is, we might begin to articulatebodies that aredifferent
both materially(e.g., as sexed, as raced) and historically (e.g., as gendered,as
classed,as ethnic, as national, as temporal):we might begin to articulatethese
differencessimultaneously,ratherthan oppositionally.
In engaging Foucault and Irigaray,we may thus learn how to articulate
bodies that are both historicizedand sexed in their subjectivedifferences.We
may leam how to articulatedifferencesacrosstheir multiplicities of historical
and sexed embodiments, exceeding the reign of phallic, oppositional differ-
ence. Foucaultand Irigarayplay within similardiscursivefields;however,they
accentuatedifferentdynamicswithin these matrices.Learningto invoke, rather
than to silence, these differencesmay give us richer tools with which to ap-
proach and articulatethe differenceswithin our different lives.

NOTES

Portions of this paper were presented at the 1997 meeting of The International
Association of Philosophy and Literatureand the 1997 meeting of The Society of
Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.I am gratefulto participants,particularly
to Michael Schwartz,for thoughtful responses and suggestions. I also want to thank
Helene Meyersfor insightfuland provocativediscussionsof this paperat variousstages.
1. In "ThisSex Which Is Not One," Irigaraywrites:"Thus,for example, woman's
autoeroticism is very different from man's. In order to touch himself, man needs an
instrument:his hand, a woman'sbody, language ... " (1985c, 24).
2. For the fruitfulcoining of "engaging"as a new style of reading, see Margaret
Whitford (1991, 25).
3. In most of the recent literature focusing on Irigaray,Foucault either is in-
cluded in an introductorymention of the problematicallyphallogocentricturnof many
 Shannon Winnubst 31

(male) poststructuraliststowardsquestions of sexuality and the body or, more often, is

omitted altogether from relevant themes. A samplingof recent literatureon Irigaray
that simply omits Foucault includes the majorpublications of the past few years:see
Tina Chanter (1995); Carolyn Burke,Naomi Schor, and Whitford (1994); Whitford
(1991). Interestingly,Whitford notes that she had only found one article, "Ethicsof
Sexual Difference:The Case of Foucaultand Irigaray"(see Rosi Braidotti 1994), ex-
plicitly addressingthese two thinkers, and she recognizesthis work as "an area which
would merit further exploration" (1991, 196, n.24). While Braidotti'sessay remains
the singularwork on Irigarayand Foucault, it remains within the combative frame-
work of pitting one against the other, rather than engaging their differences;this is
surprising,given Braidotti'sfruitful development of the model of "engaging"in her
work on Irigarayand Gilles Deleuze.
Conversely, those positions working out of a Foucauldianframeworkoften dis-
miss Irigarayas essentialist, universalist, or naively biologistic. Perhapsthe foremost
Foucauldian feminist is Judith Butler, who clearly levels this critique of Irigarayin
GenderTrouble(Butler 1990), but then continues a more muted form of it in Bodies
thatMatter(1993), where she accuses Irigarayof universalist sweeps that mirrorthe
phallogocentric totalization and of a "penetrative"readingstyle (1993, 45).
4. Of course, as Foucaultarguesin "Discourseon Language"(1972, 220-22), the
deployment of "secondary"literatureoften comes to constitute the meaning of "pri-
mary"texts. With appropriateirony,I am not claiming a "pure"readingof any "origi-
nal" text; rather,I am hoping to re-deploy these texts in differentdirections.
5. I am explicitly attempting to avoid the complex machine of Hegelian inter-
pretation regardingHegel's final or overarching projects. Regardlessof his aim, the
Concept remains a central figure in Hegel's system and in the thinking that consti-
tutes it.
6. A.V. Miller translatesHegel'sBegriffas Notion. I am substitutingConcept for
Miller'sNotion, as I think it bringsthe spiritof Hegel'stext more directly into contact
with both the tradition at which it is aimed and the deployment that has followed it.
The Concept is a technical term for Hegel. I have capitalizedit when referringto his
text. When not capitalized,I am referringto the more common use of the term.
7. In the strikingresemblanceto the Oedipal child'sorigin, perhapsthe Hegelian
dialectic is yet another articulationof logics that framesexual differenceas a simulta-
neously contradictoryand complementaryopposite.
8. For an example of such a reading of the Phenomenology,see Joseph C. Flay
(1984, especially 241-48).
9. As Quentin Lauerputs it, the "concept is not a means employed in order to
grasp;it is the very activity of graspingthe object" (1976, 26).
10. For a compelling but problematic argumentthat both embodiment and lan-
guage are central to Hegel's project, see John Russon (1993). While Russon certainly
gives a persuasiveaccount of this thesis, he remains true to his Hegelian roots in his
failure to recognize the lack of a sexedbody not only in Hegel's texts, but also in his
own. The problemswith this alleged neutering of embodiment are then only exacer-
bated by Russon'spersistent use of the feminine pronoun, her,to refernot only to his
reader,but also to "the Hegelian reader"and to the Hegelian Master and Slave. Fi-
nally, this omission of sexual difference is particularlyegregious given that Russon
groundshis thesis in a discussionof Antigone and Creon, both of whom, accordingto
32 Hypatia

Russon, embody "human bodies," not female and male bodies. For an earlier read-
ing-which Russon fails to note-of Antigone,of the Master/Slavedialectic, and of
the processesof bodily habituation (also Russon'stheme) that offersboth a readingof
embodiment as central to Hegel and a critique of Hegel through the play of sexual
difference, see Rosalyn Diprose (1991). Diprose is, interestingly,quite careful to ex-
plain her choice of the pronoun, his, at variousjunctures in her essay.
11. ElizabethGrosz suggeststhat, even if Ferdinandde Saussure'sson became a
psychoanalystunder Freud, Saussure'slectures on semiology and general linguistics
(Saussure1959), which took place from 1906-1911 and werenot publisheduntil 1916,
still post date Freud'sdevelopment of his account of the unconscious in 1900 (Freud
1970). She agreeswith Lacan that "Saussuriansemiology is at best a post hoc knowl-
edge that Freuddid not use at the time of his formulations"(Grosz 1990, 93).
12. See particularly"Functionand Fieldof Speech and Language,"in Lacan(1977).
13. It is crucial to distinguish this "other"from the "Other"that is the true hori-
zon of desire. Again, Grosz'sexplanation is quite helpful: "desireis in principle insa-
tiable. It is alwaysan effect of the Other, an 'other'with whom it cannot engage, in so
far as the Other is not a person but a place, the locus of law, language, and the sym-
bolic" (1990, 67). In so far as desire remainsfastened to the other-i.e., to the other
person-as I am framingit here, desirewill never be sated and the other will alwaysbe
expendable in the endless quest for the Other. For a compelling discussion of this
dynamic as structuringcolonial discourses,see "InteriorColonies: FrantzFanon and
the Politics of Identification,"in Diana Fuss (1995).
14. For a concise discussion of the complex interplays among desire, de-
mand, and need, see Grosz(1990, 59-67). Fora discussionof how desire,demand,and
need operate fundamentallyon a phallocentric model of subjectivity,see R. Lee Kress
(1996, 7-9).
15. Lacan writes of this impossibility:"In any case, man cannot aim at being
whole, while ever the play of displacement and condensation to which he is doomed
in the exercise of his functions markshis relation as a subject to the signifier"(Lacan
1977, 287).
16. For a discussion of how this distinction between "having"or "being"the
phallus characterizessexual difference for Lacan, see Grosz (1990, 116-22 and 131-
37). Lacan himself also describesthis central function of the phallus in determining
sexual difference: "But one may, simply by reference to the function of the phallus,
indicate the structuresthat will govern the relationsbetween the sexes. Let us say that
these relationswill turn arounda 'to be' and 'to have,' which, by referringto a signifier,
the phallus, have the opposed effect, on the one hand, of giving reality to the subject
in this signifier,and, on the other, of derealizingthe relations to be signified"(Lacan
1977, 289). Parveen Adams (1992) argues that both of these positions represent a
defense against castration that exists at the level of identification, at the level of the
imaginary,and thus, within the phallic order.Her suggestion that then all norms or
identifications-regardless of their "feminist"content-are part of the phallic order
resonates with the ways in which I am suggesting that both Irigarayand Foucault,
resisting the move to conceptualize norms, exceed the phallus. Butler (1993) also
argues that disrupting the boundary between "being"and "having"the phallus, as
performedby her "lesbian phallus,"effectively displaces the hegemonic symbolic of
heterosexist sexual difference.
 Shannon Winnubst 33

17. Jacqueline Rose's translation brings this criterion of the phallus into more
direct contact with the criterion of the Hegelian Concept. She writes, "[o]ne might
say that this signifieris chosen as what stands out as most easily seized upon" (Lacan
1982, 82), thus characterizingthe phallus as privilegedbecause it can be conceptual-
ized-it is begreiflich.
18. The question of the connection and simultaneous disconnection between
the Lacanian phallus and penis is a central hinge for feminist appropriationsand/or
disavowals of Lacan. Appropriately,it has been the subject of much critical discus-
sion. (See also note 20 below.) For a clear discussion of Lacan's(failed) attempts to
disentangle the phallusfrom the penis and its relation to questionsof essentialismand
constructionism, see Fuss (1989, 7-10 and 65-66). While Fuss finally suggests that
Lacan'sphallus continually risks essentialism in its conjuring of images of the penis,
Charles Bemheimer argues provocatively that the penile referent in the Lacanian
phallus could in fact disavow any such essentialism when read through the variety of
shapes, sizes, and colors of living penises-including both the flaccid and the erect
(1992). Bemheimer's essay operates from a point of departuresimilar to Grosz'sat-
tempts to articulate a non-phallocentric male morphology(Grosz 1989), which I de-
velop later in the essay.
19. Of course, the veiling and unveiling of the phallus assumemythical propor-
tions, both in the ancient rituals that Lacan refersto (1977, 287) and in the latent
homoeroticism of phallocentric cultures that Irigarayexposes; but this can be read
easily enough through the Hegelian fear and suspicion of immediacy.Thus, just as the
Concept requirescareful dialectical mediation before arrivingat its true, self-deter-
mining form, so too must the phallus undergoconstant mediation-through language
and its transformationof an object into a signifier, through property,through the
exchange of women-before arrivingat its true form. See KajaSilverman (1992, 85-
89) for an insightful discussion of this play of the veil in Lacan'stext through its
historical referencesto the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteriesin Pompeii.
20. For both a compelling argumentfor this position and a thorough rebuttalof
secondarysourcescontending otherwise, see Silverman (1992). While Silvermanrec-
ognizes that recent theory has benefited greatlyfrom Lacan'sdistinction between the
penis and the phallus (a point that I will develop later in the essay), we must not read
this distinction as a sharp separation. Attention to this logic of representationthat
still binds the phallus to the penis may,as she argues,sufficientlycall into question its
privilege and expose-unveil-the play of sexual difference in Lacan'stexts. In "The
Lesbian Phallus and the Morphological Imaginary"(Butler 1993), Judith Butler de-
velops the phallus as both symbolizing the penis and disavowing this status as an
imaginaryeffect. For Butler,this disjunction allows for the possibilitiesof transferring
the phallus to other body parts,thus creating the possibilityof the lesbian phallus.For
my purposeshere, the phallus'ssimultaneousconnection to and disconnection from
the penis-a knot that is ontologically impossible to unravel-performs the double
bind that conditions both Irigaray'sand Foucault'sattemptsto exceed the phallic field
of the Concept.
21. See Grosz (1990, 123-25) for a detailed version of this argument.
22. Lacan seems to recognize this as a remnant of Freud'stexts that, despite his
implicit critique, he does not fully dismantle. He concludes "The Signification of the
Phallus"with the following (apparentlylaudatory)remarkon Freud'sintuition: "he
34 Hypatia

advances the view that there is only one libido, his text showing that he conceives
it as masculine in nature"(Lacan 1977, 291). While this observationwould seeming-
ly open the door to a feminist critique of the Freudianmetapsychology,Lacan does
not walk through that threshold. Thus, I disagreewith Kress'sconclusion (1996) that
Lacan offers a critique of the phallus as signifier,particularlyas such a claim fails to
identify the ways in which the phallus structuresthe field of conceptualization.
23. I would arguethat this is true of the traditionfollowing Plato, ratherthan the
texts of Plato, where an understandingof the power of language and of discourse is
always present, even if usually cast pejoratively as the power of rhetoric to confuse
and distort the truth.
24. It emerges through the specific struggle of various forces, which Foucault
develops as the properfield of critical genealogy in "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"
(Foucault 1977, 148-57).
25. This apparent inconclusiveness of Foucault'soften becomes the target of
charges of moral bankruptcy,relativism, or even nihilism. Such critiques, however,
continue to operate on the phallic field of concepts-the field that Foucault'stexts
exceed and thus disrupt.
26. Thus, insofar as "discourse"often gets deployed as a Foucauldianconcept,
Foucault'stexts are read as inherently phallogocentric. I hope to have shown that
such appropriationsfail to read discursivitythrough the performativityof Foucault's
texts. Again, regardingthe machine of Foucault interpretation, I am hoping not to
restore the "originary"meaning of his "primary"texts, but to re-deploy his texts in
directions that exceed the phallic graspof conceptual analyses.
27. Many American social scientists' critiques regarding Irigaray'srather lax
"method"involved in her samplings miss the point that she is not after a universal
comment on some linguistic structure.She states explicitly that she is "not going to
define an ideal model of language(langue)"and does not "wishto establish a fixed and
immutableschema for the production of discourse"(1991, 143).
28. These examples are taken from "Women'sDiscourseand Men'sDiscourse"in
Irigaray(1993b). See also several of the essays in Irigaray(1985a).
29. Fromthis perspective,the task of uncovering the sexed characterof discourse
is all the more difficult in non-Romantic languages, where the gendering of nouns
does not exist. In response to criticisms that her work applies only to French or Ro-
mantic languages,Irigarayhas begun to do fieldworkin non-Romantic languages.See
ElizabethHirsh and Gary Olson (1995) for a samplingof this work.
30. For a compelling discussion of such possibilities in the reconfiguringtowards
fluid desires, see chapters 7 and 8 in Grosz (1989).
31. She recuperatesnot only the feminine body or the non-phallocentric mascu-
line body, but also the body itself, which the specular economy has erased. Just as
Lacan'sphallus is not reducibleto the penis, so too Irigaray'srecuperatingof the body
is not reducible exclusively to the female morphology.If the phallus is not reducible
to the penis, then the non-phallic is not contained strictlywithin the non-penile, and
Irigaray'sreconfiguringof morphologyis not contained strictly within the non-penile
body. In exceeding phallocentrism, Irigarayalso exceeds such logics of containment.
32. For the most explicit discussion of the emergence of the specific Socratic-
Platonic tradition, see the last chapter of Foucault (1990).
 Shannon Winnubst 35

33. The essentialist/constructionistdichotomy seems to framemany of the read-

ings cited earlier (see note 3) that set Foucault and Irigarayagainst one another. I
elaborate further below in the essay regardingthe specific readings of embodiment
in each.
34. I presented a much more detailed version of the following argumentin the
paper,"EmbodyingBoth Irigarayand Foucault,"at the 1997 meeting of The Society
of Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.
35. As many Foucauldianfeminists have shown, nothing in Foucault'stexts pre-
cludes gender as a socio-politico-economic category of analysis. See, for example,
the work of SandraBartky(1990), Susan Bordo (1993), Braidotti (1994), and Butler
(1990, 1993).
36. In texts such as DisciplineandPunish(Foucault 1979) and The Use of Pleasure:
Volume2 of the Historyof Sexuality(1990), Foucault focuses on the socio-politico-
economic inscriptions on bodies and, subsequently,fails to write of the reciprocal,
material forces of bodies-particularly of sexed bodies. For example, in The Use of
Pleasure(1990), he relies on the (gendered) social roles of the wife and husband-
citizen to account for the varying bodily pleasuresof each. He cannot, however, ad-
dresswhy or how it is that these differentbodily pleasuresare attached specificallyto
female and male bodies-i.e., he cannot account for the specific power that sexed
morphologiesexert in the forming of social (gender) constellations.
37. A simplifiedreadingof these sensesof embodimentagainstone anothermight
invoke the essentialist/constructionistdichotomy. Such a readingwould cast Irigaray
as maintaining the body as an "essential"site of sexual difference and characterize
Foucault as framing the body as a discursive"construction"of social, historical, and
culturalforces. As I hope to have shown, this reductionist approachmerely replicates
the oppositional logic of phallogocentrismthat each of these thinkers labors, albeit
from different directions, to undermine. For incisive accounts displaying the insta-
bilities in the essentialist/constructionist dichotomy, see Butler (1993), Braidotti
(1994), Chanter (1995), and Fuss (1989).

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